Economic Slavery

I finally got up the energy to get my desk cleaned up and get all the bills in order. Again. It's a never ending battle against all the paper that comes thru the front door of my house and ends up on my desk.

Anyway, while I'm going through the rest of what needs to be paid this month I discover that Frontline on PBS is doing "The Secret History of the Credit Card."

I already know the credit card "industry" is a racket. Then I get told how bad it really is. As I listen to the report and look at the bills (most of these are my dad's which I now need to take care of since his stroke last year) and at the new stuff that has come up during the course of just living, I want to scream. My nervous system is on fire and I have the impulse to strangle something (not literally but you get the point).

What gets me is the sheer complicity of the U.S. Congress to go along with the credit card racket, failing utterly in its duty to not only establish, but to maintain, justice and to promote the general welfare. Instead, the legislators happily allow the American public to be fleeced and then rounded up and brought to the slaughterhouse as a sacrifice on the altar of profit. We are no better than the Aztecs. Just less bloody about it.

It seems no matter how hard you try, there is just no winning. Unless the financial drought in people's wallets start getting some rainfall in terms of higher incomes, especially for retirees, desitution is in store for everyone but the top tier of households in the U.S.

I'm beginning to think that this is the underlying anger that drove this past election. Enough with the crooks and the Scrooges.